Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/srep13787
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Funding
- personal VIDI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research/Earth and Life Sciences (NWO-ALW)
- National Science Foundation [DEB-1146449]
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Concerns about rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations have spurred the promotion of no-tillage practices as a means to stimulate carbon storage and reduce CO2 emissions in agro-ecosystems. Recent research has ignited debate about the effect of earthworms on the GHG balance of soil. It is unclear how earthworms interact with soil management practices, making long-term predictions on their effect in agro-ecosystems problematic. Here we show, in a unique two-year experiment, that earthworm presence increases the combined cumulative emissions of CO2 and N2O from a simulated no-tillage (NT) system to the same level as a simulated conventional tillage (CT) system. We found no evidence for increased soil C storage in the presence of earthworms. Because NT agriculture stimulates earthworm presence, our results identify a possible biological pathway for the limited potential of no-tillage soils with respect to GHG mitigation.
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